Friday, June 5, 2015

Common Core Contrition - Bill Gates Should Just Apologize

I have never been more grateful for the freedom to home educate. If home education became illegal -tomorrow? I would be an outlaw - tomorrow.

In the past few months, I have fielded more inquires into home education than in all of the previous 16 years combined. Why? Because there are countless parents who simply can not bear to send their kids back to the testing warehouses - the Common Core laboratories - where nothing makes sense and where enthusiasm for learning goes to die.

The more I hear from parents, who are daily stupefied and aghast over the inferior curriculum, the tormented teachers, and the clueless autocrats - all of which are inflicted on exhausted and enfeebled children - the more certain I am that it is doomed, doomed, doomed. It is so sad.

I grieve for these children. But, there is one hope.

Bill Gates, who must certainly and deeply regret ever putting his money into this, should simply admit that he was wrong. Mr. Gates should apologize to the nation. This would be the beginning of our long journey out of this educational purgatory. This is how the United States, as a nation, can be rescued.

Bill Gates' money has done great things in the past. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped to eradicate polio in India and continues to make great strides, reducing polio by as much as 99% across the globe! When philanthropy can do something like this, something so clearly GOOD in all respects, everyone applauds. Indeed, everyone is deeply grateful. But, when philanthropy seeks to affect massive social change in a country, while the bulk of the citizens in that country oppose it and mistrust it, no good can come of it.

Mr. Gates knows this now. But can he admit it?

Mr. Gates, I thank you for your generosity and for all the good you have done. But, it is time to throw in the towel on Common Core. It is time to admit that it was a bad idea. It is time to extract yourself from the College Board Cartel.

Your apology can rescue the country from the apocryphal Common Core and the mediocrity it embodies. Just these words: "I am sorry. I was wrong." It costs nothing at all and it can rescue more kids now than ever before.